by Susan Napier
That was too much for Honor. ‘Chivalrous!’
He deflected her scorn with wicked amusement. ‘All right, my passionate instincts, then.’
Honor was about to say something cutting about his passion when she remembered the tender ears tuned in their direction. Before she could rephrase her insult in suitably euphemistic terms Adam had moved to her side and grasped her elbow in the excruciatingly gentle hold with which he had earlier controlled her and began guiding her towards the door.
‘As for your other uninvited guest, Tania, I’m afraid that Monty’s every bit as assertive and unpredictable of temperament as his mistress, so I’d advise you to steer clear of him. Mum, perhaps you can coax him back into the kitchen, since you seem to be the only one he respects. Honor and I have some business to discuss in the study.’
‘Business?’ Tania’s porcelain complexion was flushed with an exquisite colour that Honor doubted was embarrassment. ‘What kind of business? Adam—we haven’t had dessert yet and it’s blackberry pie...your favourite! I asked Rhonda to make it specially...’
Adam’s smile positively smouldered as he glanced back over his shoulder. ‘You go ahead. Don’t worry about us. Honor and I will have our dessert in the study...’
CHAPTER SIX
‘I HAVE a proposition for you.’
Honor stared at the man seated behind the heavy walnut desk. He might look perfectly sane, but he obviously wasn’t. First his infuriating act at the dinner-table, and now this!
‘The answer is no,’ she said frigidly, crossing her legs to emphasise the firmness of her refusal. He had made her explain all over again about the misdirected letters while he listened, this time quietly and without expression, giving her hope that he was at last beginning to believe her. Instead he had probably been softening her up for some fresh outrage.
‘You don’t know what it is yet.’
He was rolling an elegant silver pen between strong fingers but his attention was elsewhere. Following his gaze, Honor saw the way that her dress had hiked up her thighs with her movement and she hurriedly uncrossed her legs, her chilly manner melting into flustered embarrassment. The man was a genius at unsettling her.
‘I don’t care what it is. The answer is still no.’
‘Won’t you at least hear me out? Surely you owe me that much.’
She sat straighter in her chair, mastering the quick flare of guilt. She wasn’t going to be taken in by that plaintive air. The last time she had allowed herself to feel sorry for him she had got her drawers rifled.
‘I don’t owe you anything. Least of all consideration of some smutty proposition—’
The pen stopped rolling. ‘What makes you think it’s smutty?’
He sounded so surprised that she nearly blushed. Damn, she had almost given herself away there. When he had looked at her legs he had probably been imagining how much better Helen would have looked with a dress riding up her thighs.
‘The way you carried on just now in the dining-room.’ She used blistering sarcasm to cloak her injured pride. ‘Hardly the perfect method of persuading your mother there’s nothing between us!’
‘Yes, well...I apologise for that,’ he said meekly, meeting her gaze squarely. ‘I guess I got a bit carried away with my desire for revenge. I’m sorry for teasing you.’
The handsome apology took the wind out of her billowing sails and they flapped emptily as she tried to maintain her defensive outrage.
‘A bit carried away? You were practically drowning in your own drool!’
‘How revoltingly descriptive,’ he murmured drily, adding quickly as he saw her bristle, ‘but very apt. You have a very strong attachment to colourful metaphors, don’t you, Honor? You use rather a lot of them in your letters...’
The reminder of all that was between them brought her up short as she tried to remember exactly what revealing metaphors she might have used in the full flood of her creative outpourings. She had never edited her letters the way she edited her professional copy, she had just opened the floodgates of her imagination and let it flow.
‘I knew it was just an act,’ she said, wanting to make it clear that she hadn’t been taken in for one moment by his behaviour in the dining-room; that she hadn’t felt a single frisson of delight when he had touched her, kissed her hand, pressed it to his thigh...
‘Of course you did,’ he soothed. ‘You’re a very shrewd and intelligent woman. Far too intelligent to hold a grudge over a petty act of one-upmanship.’
‘There’s no need to go over the top,’ she told him sourly. ‘What is this proposition of yours, then?’
‘A business one, naturally.’
Naturally. Honor didn’t let her chagrin show.
‘Go on,’ she said, determined to refuse what was probably only a thinly disguised bribe for her to keep her mouth shut.
‘I’m currently trying to sort out the mess my brother’s death created in the family company. Unfortunately, while Zach was a born farmer it seems he wasn’t much of a manager. It’s partly my fault, because after our original expansion we ran things very much in tandem until my wife died. Zach oversaw the agricultural side, I worked the business angle. We all lived here then, so Tania got to play the lady of the manor to the hilt while Mum ran the household and Mary devoted herself to Sara...’
As if sensing Honor’s sharpened interest, Adam rose and turned to the curtained window behind him, his hand going out to draw aside the velvet fabric before dropping back to his side in a gesture of clenched frustration. With a jolt Honor realised that he had probably been warned to stay away from lighted windows. He didn’t turn around as he continued.
‘Mary loved it here, but after her death I felt suffocated by the memories here so Sara and I moved to the city and I concentrated on building up the property-development company that I’d started as a sideline to our main interests. If I’d known Zach was struggling I would have helped but he never indicated that there were any problems or objected to my gradually withdrawing from active involvement in the management. He was my big brother. I’d always respected and admired him. Maybe he didn’t want to jeopardise that, or maybe he didn’t want to burden me with obligations that I’d clearly opted out of...’
Honor was wondering where his confidences were leading. She had the feeling that he was talking more to himself than to her as he sifted through his feelings.
‘You mean your family company is in financial trouble?’ she asked cautiously.
It was the wrong question to ask. He swung around, his body stiffening with threat. ‘No, that’s not what I mean. The company is basically sound, and if you print a word to the contrary I’ll have a libel suit slapped on you so fast you’ll wonder what hit you.’
She blinked. ‘If you trust me that little, why on earth are you telling me all this?’
He scowled. It was something his harshly attractive face was very good at.
‘All Blake Investments needs to get back on track is some firm direction from the top,’ he said, ignoring her question. ‘My first task is to get everyone motivated and enthusiastic. I want to draw the employees together and make them feel as if they have a real stake in the future of the company, whatever their job level. I want a staff newsletter, something slick but relatively inexpensive. But it’ll take time to set up an in-house operation and I want this out now. I don’t want to have to muck around with advertising agencies or submissions—this has to be seen to originate with me. I need someone on the spot with a proven expertise in desk-top publishing, someone who I know won’t let me down...’
The light dawned. She got to her feet to confront him with her disbelief. ‘You want me?’
His mouth twisted. ‘In a manner of speaking. Why so incredulous—aren’t you good at your job?’
‘Of course I am. But you can’t expect me to believe that you want someone you think has cheated and betrayed your confidence to work for you—’
‘I thought I had apologised for that.’
‘You apologised for smarming all over me at dinner,’ she corrected him tartly.
‘Smarming?’ The twist turned into a smile. ‘Is there such a word?’
‘There is now.’ She refused to be diverted by that calculated charm. ‘You didn’t apologise for everything else you’ve done.’
He shook his head. ‘You’re a hard woman, Honor Sheldon.’
‘And you’re a hard man.’
‘Not yet, but keep provoking me and you’ll find out just how hard I can get.’
He might not have meant the sexual innuendo but that didn’t stop Honor’s wayward glance downwards. As soon as she realised what she had done her eyes jerked back up his body, flushing as she met his knowing amusement.
‘I didn’t mean that kind of provocativeness, darling,’ he murmured, driving her idiocy home.
‘Don’t call me that!’
‘You called me darling.’
‘Yes, but I was just....’
‘Playing up to me. Yes, I know. Very reckless of you. Who taught you to flirt—your beautiful sister?’
A hot wave of unaccustomed jealousy washed over her. ‘Leave Helen out of this!’
‘Difficult, but I’ll try. If you’ll try and forgive me for not believing your obviously unsullied innocence.’
‘What makes you assume I’m unsullied?’ she snapped furiously, still burning over the implied comparison with Helen. ‘I am twenty-five, you know. Just because I’m not blonde and drop-dead gorgeous doesn’t mean I haven’t had plenty of chances—’
This time his amusement burst into open mirth. His laughter was like warm sunlight in the shrouded room. It seemed his positive emotions were every bit as powerful as his negative ones.
‘I’m sure you have, but I wasn’t referring to your sexual experience, Honor. For a writer you do seem to have a terrible problem with misinterpretation of the language, don’t you? I simply meant that the more time I spend in your company, the less I’m inclined to believe that you’d ever get involved in anything as dishonourable as extortion. You’re rather well-named, I think.’
He tilted his head, regarding her simmering uncertainty thoughtfully. ‘Did you know your eyes narrow when you lie...or, should I say, when you try to lie? As if you’re screwing up your eyes along with your courage to do something that goes deeply against the grain. Actually it looks rather sexy. Innocent, but sexy, if you know what I mean.’
She didn’t. She glared at him. Somehow he even managed to make a flattering assessment of her honourability sound like an insult so she offered him one in return. ‘You have a twisted mind.’
‘Because I said you have a sexy squint?’
‘Yes—I mean, no—look, would you mind returning to the subject?’
‘My proposition?’ It sounded just as indecent as ever.
‘Your offer of a job,’ she clarified tightly. ‘If it even exists, and wasn’t just invented as a kind of trick—’
His eyes were suddenly as cool and assured as his tone. ‘The job is very real, I assure you. If the police want you to stay here for a few days, why shouldn’t we seek an advantage from the situation? I can arrange for your computer and files to be brought over and you can set up temporary office in one of the spare rooms. If you need a better reason to accept, why not consider doing some extra freelance work for me a fair exchange for a few days’ room and board?’
Honor planted her fists on her hips. ‘Fair? Don’t think I’m going to barter away my services for virtually nothing! If I do your newsletter you’re going to get billed in the usual way, at the usual rates. I was invited into this house as a guest, remember, and guests don’t have to pay for room and board!’ she informed him with relish, too busy enjoying scoring a point off him to realise the trap she had fallen into.
His eyes lowered so that she could not see their triumphant gleam. ‘I can see that you don’t need any advice from me about playing the advantage.’
‘No, I don’t. I’m not a babe in the woods. I’ve been looking after myself for a long time,’ she told him stoutly.
‘Is that because you don’t get on with your family...with your sister?’
Helen again! ‘Of course I do,’ she snapped, ‘but Mum and Helen love living in New York and I don’t. Five years was enough for me. It was too big, too impersonal. So after I graduated from high school I persuaded Mum to let me come back here to live with Dad.’
‘Your parents are divorced?’
‘My father died a few years ago but no, they weren’t. They just happened to want to live in two different countries. Mum chaperoned Helen and another teenage model when they won their first New York contracts and since I was only twelve and Dad was working erratic hours she took me with her. We just sort of stayed on when Helen’s career took off but Dad was adamant he’d never leave New Zealand. He was the editor of the paper I work for...’
She braced herself for a mocking accusation of nepotism but it didn’t come. Which was fortunate, for her father had created a job for her when she had first arrived back, an eager seventeen-year-old who hadn’t quite known what she wanted to do with her life, except that somehow it would involve writing.
Luckily she had found her niche quite quickly, her high-school interest in computers and graphic art proving unexpectedly useful when the newspaper’s owner had decided to switch to the new computerised technology. When her father died and the owner’s son had rationalised the string of Auckland papers he owned she had been happy to accept the suggestion that she work directly from her home, since by then she was already doing quite a bit of freelance work via her home computer.
‘So ink is in your blood. Didn’t you ever want to be a model like Helen?’
Honor closed her eyes with a small shudder of genuine horror. ‘God, no! Even if I’d had the build for it I didn’t have the nerve. Models may look as if they’ve got delicate skins but really they need a hide like a rhinoceros to survive the criticism that’s heaped on them day in, day out.’
‘So you’re the thin-skinned one in your family?’
For a big man he moved quietly. His finger sliding down the soft ridge of her collarbone made her eyes fly open.
‘I was just wondering whether your scratches were still tender,’ he said innocently, removing his finger from the anxious leap of her pulse in the hollow of her throat as he towered over her. ‘You’re lucky they don’t show so you don’t have to answer awkward questions.’
She clamped a hand to the soft-knit bodice of her dress, spreading it defensively across her breasts even though his eyes hadn’t moved from her face. ‘They’re fine,’ she said sternly, to banish the sly image of that lightly calloused fingertip dipping into her cleavage.
‘I wasn’t going to look,’ he soothed, not moving away. ‘I was merely showing friendly concern for a colleague.’
‘I haven’t said I’ll take the job yet,’ she denied skittishly.
He looked at her steadily for a moment, then sighed, his face hardening.
‘I might have known it would come to this. I suppose you want exclusive rights to the inside story on the extortion when it breaks. Since you’re already in possession of potentially damaging information you must know I’m hardly in a position to refuse.’
She blinked at him, her heart pattering uncomfortably fast under her splayed fingers as she contemplated an idea that hadn’t even occurred to her. Still, it wouldn’t do to let him know that...
‘That would be blackmail,’ she said slowly.
‘I don’t suppose that’ll stop you using it to get what you want,’ he said grimly. ‘You know you have me over the proverbial barrel.’
Did she? Honor’s eyes brightened from murky sea-green to emerald at this refreshing new perspective on the situation. Suddenly Adam’s height and breadth and bullish determination didn’t seem so intimidating. She lowered her protective hand, a slow smile breaking across her face, illuminating it with a soft glow of delighted discovery.
‘So I do.’ Her tone was redolent w
ith smug satisfaction.
A muscle flexed along his hard jaw as he watched her former nervous unease smothered by a jaunty self-confidence.
‘So?’ The sullen challenge quivered slightly, no doubt with suppressed rage at his helplessness, thought Honor naïvely. The novelty of power rushed recklessly to her head.
‘Sooo...’ She drew out the word tauntingly. ‘Maybe my working for you is going to turn out to be more expensive than you anticipated—a lot more expensive...’
He growled fiercely in his throat, his eyes glittering with more of that same, unidentified emotion. ‘You ruthless little bitch!’
The gravelly insult gave her a sharp, illicit thrill. No one had ever called ‘good old Honor’ a bitch, let alone a ruthless one. She was too pleasant, too ordinary, too nice to excite anybody to strong feelings. An image of herself as a dangerous villainess conquering the superior strength of her masculine prey with brilliant strategems stalked across her brain, strongly appealing to her damaged ego.
‘Tut, tut, Adam, calm down,’ she said sweetly. ‘You wanted me. You’ve got me. You just got a bit more of me than you bargained for!
‘Now—’ She strolled around his desk and flopped into his large swivel chair. The smooth leather was still warm from his body and accepted her generous contours with the barest of creaks. ‘Why don’t you sit down and give me the details?’
She waved him condescendingly into the guest seat, not surprised when he balked. She didn’t quite have the gall to plant her feet on his desk-top but she made her point by picking up the pen he had been playing with earlier and studying it acquisitively as she rocked back in the chair.
‘Nice pen. A gift?’
‘For my birthday.’ He paused, ruefully eyeing the she-devil his challenge had unleashed. She was stroking the blunt end of his pen slowly back and forth against her parted lips, leading him to wonder whether she had meant to tease him with the provocative sexual imagery that sprang irresistibly to mind.
Probably not. In spite of the innate sensuality revealed in her writing and in her impulsive response to stimuli he had the feeling that she didn’t think of herself as sexy. In fact she was tormenting him with all the artless delight of a little girl playing dress-up in her big sister’s clothes.